The last wish of a dying zoo worker was to visit his animal friends and co-workers once more. During their last encounter, giraffes sensed his pain and started kissing him goodbye. 

Animals are amazing beings, and they can be highly compassionate and empathic. These beautiful creatures can see and feel our pain and sorrow, express and feel emotions, and always manage to find ways to touch our souls.

Numerous examples have confirmed that they never forget the love they have received from their human carers.

Mario Ejis, a worker at the Rotterdam’s Diergaarde Blijdorp zoo lived long enough to receive the reward for the love he had treated the animals with.

He has worked at this zoo in the Netherlands as maintenance staff for 25 years. He had spent almost half of his life cleaning the cages of animals and making friends with them.

Apart from his mental disability, this man had also battled terminal cancer. Therefore, he was not able to go to work for some time. Back in 2014, the 54-year old man had one request last to make – he wanted to see the zoo again.

He was confined to bed, as his condition was greatly worsened. He has speech difficulties and could not make coherent sentences easily.

Fortunately, a charity, called the Ambulance Wish Foundation, decided to help him. This organization transports terminally ill patients to a place of personal significance as their last wish.

To make his dream come true and see his old friends again, they transported him to the zoo in a specially designed ambulance. There, when he approached the giraffes, something amazing happened!

The giraffes went closer to the ambulance carrying Mario, sticking their heads one after the other through the window. With sad expressions in the eyes, after sensing his pain and sadness, they nuzzled him, kissed him, and comforted him!

In a written summary of the day, foundation worker Olaf Exoo said that ”Mario got a lick on his nose after a lot of snuffles”, and added that this was ” the last greeting to each other that gave everybody watching goosebumps.”

Kees Veldboer, the founder of the Ambulance Wish Foundation said:

“These animals recognized him and felt that (things aren’t) going well with him.

It was) a very special moment. You saw him beaming.”

Mario was lucky to get the opportunity to say goodbye to his beloved animal friends and co-workers.

As soon as The Ambulance Wish foundation uploaded the story on Facebook, it quickly went viral, leaving a lot of people heartbroken.

The ability of giraffes to sense the pain of their friend and their efforts to ease it melted their hearts.

Truly moving, indeed! 

Source: www.usatoday.com